Skyfall is a new Hybrid brassica, bred to provide a palatable leafy feed which can be fed either in the summer, when grass growth might be limited, or sown later, to enable the crop to be grazed in the autumn or winter months.

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NEW! From Limagrain "Bombardier" is a new kale variety with the potential to deliver high dry matter yields ideal for dairy, beef or lamb production. Ideal for autumn or winter use for dairy, beef or lamb production.

Bombardier is a new kale variety with the potential to deliver high dry matter yields ideal for dairy, beef or lamb production. Bombardier will maximise the yield potential per hectare, but Bombardier quality has been enhanced to ensure that the feed produced will be of the highest quality.

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Will you be looking for a medium to long term grass ley mixture for this year? Barenbrug's "Long Season" is well worth a look at containing early, medium and late perennial ryegrasses with white clover and Timothy a mixture that will give true long season production of top quality forage.

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Appin: A grazing turnip which is mostly leaf, with a leaf to root ratio of 80/20. Suitable for multi grazing.

Barabas: High leaf to bulb ratio resulting in high levels of protein. Fast Growing catch crop which is very suitable for grazing. Flexible sowing period with very good early vigour, UK Proven, highly palatable with good disease resistance, Quick to mature.

Barkant: A winter hardy, a highly digestible variety with high dry matter. Produces large tankard shaped roots which are palatable by both sheep and cattle. This is a proven and reliable stubble turnip.

Delilah: Delilah is ideal for finishing lambs and will produce huge, white tankard shaped bulbs. Good resistance to mildew.

Dynamo (Organic): produce heavy crops that are ideal for dairy grazing. Sowing throughout the summer until late August will provide feed through until January. Early sowing from late April -Ideal for fattening lambs from July onwards

Samson: Can produce huge, tankard-shaped purple bulbs which are very palatable to both sheep and cattle. In trials, Samson has shown to be preferentially grazed which can lead to higher intake and live weight gains.

Rondo: Rondo is a green-skinned variety, suitable for sheep or cattle. It has a very leafy growth habit with excellent disease resistance and can be utilised from September to early February. Rondo has excellent root anchorage which helps reduce wastage in the field.

Vollenda: A large-leafed, highly digestible variety with good early vigour and good disease resistance. It retains its palatability throughout the season, and is noted for its yield speed of growth and bolting resistance.

Skyfall (Hybrid Brassica) New! Skyfall is a new Hybrid brassica, bred to provide a palatable leafy feed which can be fed either in the summer, when grass growth might be limited, or sown later, to enable the crop to be grazed in the autumn or winter months. Skyfall’s hybrid ability enables regrowth potential and the possibility of producing extra feed.

Tyfon (Hybrid Turnip): Tyfon is ideally sown in the spring and utilised in the summer months when grass growth generally declines. Tyfon should not be sown too early as it is susceptible to bolting. Tyfon’s growth habit is very leafy with regrowth potential.

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Now is The Time to Finish Grazing Your Brassicas Following a tough spring and summer in 2018, the mild autumn and winter allowed for ideal grazing conditions of brassicas across the country. Fodder crops such as kale, forage rape and hybrid brassicas provided a valuable feed supply this winter, with many farmers achieving high crop yields and improved livestock performance.
At this stage, most farms have finished grazing brassicas. However, there is still some small acreage to be grazed, as we move into February, it is now time to finish grazing these crops.

Forage brassicas contain SMCO (S–methyl cysteine sulphoxide) which is generally not an issue for animals once they are introduced to the crop slowly and have a fibre source such as silage or straw which contributes 30% of the total diet.

However, flowering brassicas crops will present a higher risk to animals as they have the greatest concentration of SMCOs. Brassicas generally flower in late February, however, due to the mild winter, this may occur sooner this year. Excess levels of SMCO’s can lead to anaemia, appetite loss and animals are also likely to develop a condition known as “red water”.

Signs of Red Water

Urine will be dark brown to red.

Animal may appear weaker with a decreased appetite.

Pale or yellow mucous membranes.

It is important to monitor your crops for flowering and aim to have them grazed before it occurs. Do not introduce stock to a brassica crop for the first time now; only graze the crop with stock that have been turned out on it for the last while.

If red water is observed, affected animals should be immediately removed and offered a silage or hay–based diet to reduce SMCO intake. Increase fibre supplementation to the remainder of the herd’s diet and consult with your vet.

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Kevin Robinson will be growing kale again in 2019 – and he will opt again, after the success in 2018, for a new variety with more digestible stems than previous kale varieties.

Kevin, who manages the farm for Marigold de Quincey, drilled 2ha of the new kale variety Bombardier in mid May 2018 and started strip grazing the field in late October.

The 40 spring-calving suckler cows took to the kale immediately. “I gave them a 10-meter strip to start with, then I moved the fence 2m each day,” says Kevin. “They cleaned up the crop well and ate all the stems and leaves; there wasn’t much left at the end of the day and they were waiting for me to move the fence each morning.”

The cows were back-fenced so they could run back on to the grass. They also had access to straw and feed blocks as part of their diet. “It provided valuable extra winter forage. We overwinter the cattle outdoors – they only come in to calve, so producing as much home-grown forage – of good feed quality – is important to us,” adds Kevin,” who runs the mainly Hereford cross cows on his mixed arable, beef and sheep unit at Upton Magna, Shrewsbury.

The kale seed was drilled on a rough piece of ground that had been badly rutted following a wet winter. The land was disced and then power harrowed and Kevin sowed the seed from a spinner off his quad bike.

“The soil is thin on this part of the farm, and we didn’t irrigate the crop,” he says, adding that the only help he gave the crop was 40 units of liquid fertiliser. “We had no rain at all for a few months; it’s amazing how it survived. I think there must have been just enough moisture to get it going and then enough leaf cover to prevent it drying out completely. At one point the whole crop wilted but it was saved by rain a few days later.”

An extended summer and warm autumn held temperatures above the seasonal norm and the kale kept growing. Even when the cows moved onto the crop in late October it was still growing.

“It was trial and error,” he adds. “But the cattle did well on this kale crop and we grazed it until mid January. They then moved onto grass before coming indoors late February, ahead of calving.”

Kevin plans to follow the kale with a grass reseed and, impressed with the robustness of the crop, he’s growing more Bombardier kale on another field ready for winter grazing in 2019.

More mileage from kale

Poor stem quality – that may have been 60% to 70% of the total yield, has often limited the feed value of forage kales but new varieties, that have softer and more digestible stems, have improved the feed value and utilisation of the crop.

“Bombardier is a good example,” says Limagrain’s forage crops manager Martin Titley. “It was a new variety to the UK market in Spring 2018 and has been bred for improved stem and leaf utilisation.”

Trials have shown that this new variety has a digestibility of 72.2% and a dry matter content of 13.5%, with a relative dry matter yield of 18% above the control variety, that’s 1.74 tonnes more from each hectare. It is expected to produce between 70 tonnes to 80 tonnes of fresh yield per hectare and between nine and 11 tonnes per hectare of dry matter.

“In the past, farmers have faced a bit of a dilemma when it comes to kale,” adds Mr Titley. “If the kale crop is grazed well, then crop utilisation is good but the poor feed value in the stem will limit liveweight gain. A less well-grazed crop, where a proportion of the stem is left, will achieve better liveweight gains but poorer crop utilisation.

“Marrow stem kales like Bombardier are highly digestible and have improved dry matter yields and utilisation potential, can overcome this dilemma.”

Kale is best drilled in May or early June at a seed rate of 5kg per hectare. Farmers are encouraged to opt for varieties that are club root tolerant and where the seed can be supplied with a fungicide seed treatment.

“The great benefit of a kale crop is its flexibility,” says Mr Titley. “It can be used any time from September to February, so it is ideal for outwintering production systems and it is a popular choice for dairy young stock, beef cattle and sheep.”

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HiBird Maize Blend will achieve a spread of maturity cob ripeness and supply a valuable source of feed.

Strengths
A blend combining early, intermediate and late varieties
All varieties are selected for good early vigour and standing power
Laboratory tested for germination and vigour
Contains varieties bred by Limagrain
Mesurol treated seed to control frit fly and damage by birds
Packed in 1.1 acre units (50,000 seeds)
Crop Height 180-200cm

Strengths
Ideal for sowing on areas that cannot be sown annually Triticale will provide feed in the first year Second and third years will see the chicory flower at a height of 1.5m Very drought tolerant due to deep rooting chicory